Steven Claydon

Steven Claydon Exhibited at The Saatchi Gallery

Steven ClaydonThe Author of Mishap (Them)

2005

Copper powder in resin and peacock feather

Sculpture: 36 x 21.5 x 23.5 cm Plinth: 125 x 30 x 30 cm

Claydonâ€™s The Author of Mishap (Them) takes its inspiration from J.G. Frazerâ€™s The Golden Bough, an early 20th-century dissertation on magic and ritual that was widely denounced for its questionable methodology â€“ a comparative anthropology by â€˜genreâ€™ rather than linear science. Mirroring Frazerâ€™s logic, Claydonâ€™s portrait is a composite of three heroic busts of political figures from this time, each embodying radically opposing beliefs. Through this literal hybrid, Claydon incites the current revivals of genetic engineering and post-modern eclecticism as plausible validation of Frazerâ€™s theories. Substituting the traditional hallowed material of bronze for cast copper powder and resin, Claydon defiles his subjectâ€™s monumentality; the aged patina has been created through urinating on the object, both an act of defamation and a reference to Warholâ€™s egalitarian pop. Perched on a burlap-coated plinth reminiscent of 1950s gallery wall coverings, Claydon reinforces his sculptureâ€™s historical stature while belying its association with outdated fashion. The peacock feather operates primarily as a formal device, adding a surreal and dilettantish air to the impoverished authoritarian relic.

Steven ClaydonLightbox Group

2007

Dimensions variable

Set atop light boxes, Claydonâ€™s mundane objects, such as a medicine ball, cast chicken bones, and new age stones are bathed in the aura-creating light of a museum display, questioning their cultural value. Their arrangement is both scientific and mystical, imbuing the humble relics with the promise of supernatural powers. Cast in bronze from KFC leftovers the bones reference the practice of telling fortunes from animal remains, while the cheap crystals gain treasured status.

The Thingliness of Things I (Potatoes In The Cellar) takes its inspiration from Heidegger’s writings on art. One of Heidegger’s philosophical problems was what exactly is it that gives art its special value? At what point does art become art and not just an ordinary object? Heidegger explored this question via a comparison between a stored work of art and potatoes kept in a cellar. Claydon’s own position in relation to this is “I see it as a more complex situation with subtle variations between the realms of material baseness and balanced subjectivity.” In The Thingliness of Things I (Potatoes In The Cellar) Claydon offers an assemblage incorporating domestic and institutional forms that reference both the everyday and the power systems that assign cultural worth.

Omar (Emergent) draws reference to De Rerum Natura, an epic poem written by Lucretius to promote Epicureanism to the Romans, as well as the Rubaiyat, an 11th-century Islamic tome by Omar Khayyam. Khayyam was a champion of the Enlightenment who advocated a humanist interpretation of Islam which included womenâ€™s rights and drinking. Omar (Emergent) addresses the contradictory developments of philosophical rationalism in relation to contemporary science. Inspired by an ancient Greek belief in the mystical properties of mathematics, Claydonâ€™s sculpture poses as a â€˜dodecahedronâ€™, a totem worshipped by the Pythagoreans; the relic was held to bestow god-like powers of good or evil to its possessor. Mounted on the structure is a ceramic bust representing a transforming entity. This tension between the sacred and profane is mirrored through Claydonâ€™s use of domestic or vulgar materials to create an aesthetic of authority.

2008
The Ancient Set and The Fictional Pixel, Film Installations and Performance, Serpentine Pavillion, London
Osram and Omar, HOTEL, London
The Ancient Set, Independent Project Space, Bourneville, Birmingham
A & not A, Galerie Dennis Kimmerich, DÃ¼sseldorf

2004
Shades of Destructors, live performance, Prince Charles Theatre, London.
Shades of Destructors, live performance, Gavin Brown Enterprise, New York.
Shades of Destructors, live performance, Humanist society, London.
Live web-cast of sculpture at Show studio
The Last Supper, Group show, Hoxton Distillery
Remixed Water, remix collaboration with Lawrence Wiener and Ned Sublet
The Third of the Third, Hoxton Distillery London (Solo)
In The Gathering Darkness, contribution with Neil Chapman for â€˜The Poster The Show 1,2,3...â€™, group exhibition Hoxton Distillery London

2003
Nibs. Group show curated by Steven Claydon, Hoxton Distillery, London
R.I.P. photographic contribution with Neil Chapman for the Box of the Uncanny, a multiple produced by Christine Walter, Munich.
Strange Greeny from The Sum of the Earth, video screening at Kunstwerk, Berlin
The Sum of the Earth, exhibition of sculpture, installation, video and sound, with Neil Chapman, Hoxton Distillery, London E8

2002
Grey Field Bulge/Tin Foil Blanket, contribution with Neil Chapman for The Poster The Show +1,
group exhibition Hoxton Distillery London

2001
Stepped Series In Response To A Nothing, contribution with Neil Chapman, group exhibition, The
Poster, The Show, The Hoxton Distillery London
It Grows Away, collaboration with Neil Chapman, The Hoxton Distillery London
Loud Like Nature, ADD N TO (X), installation and video, La Box, Borges, France

2000
One Geocrab, film screening as part of Night Stop Cinema, The Week of Small Miracles,, London
Five works in lieu of a particle accelerator, installation with Neil Chapman, Greengrassi, London

1998
Shrimp-Ice Briefing, Live Arts Event, collaboration with Neil Chapman, ICA, London SW1, 30/5
ADD N TO (X) Dinner Music for Electronic Quartet, ICA London
Live performance of group composition to the film, Paper Moon, in collaboration with Barry Adamson, Nick Cave and Pansonic, Royal Festival Hall, London

1998/99
Its A Curse Its A Burden, video installation in group show curated by Glenn Brown, Approach Gallery, London